Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the forthcoming Hungarian parliamentary elections on 3 April 2022, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of Hungarian civil society organisations' request to the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Right for the deployment of a full-scale election observation mission.

The UK is committed to building a Network of Liberty that will put us at the heart of economic, diplomatic and security partnerships. Promoting democratic values is a key part of this, and election observation allows us to support democracies and strengthen democratic electoral processes around the globe, including in the OSCE region.

We are considering our approach for the Hungarian General Election. Diplomatic observers from our British Embassy in Budapest observed the Hungarian elections in 2018 and 2014, and our Embassy will continue to work energetically with civil society groups in Hungary ahead of the elections this year. We are clear that independent election monitoring is vital for credible and inclusive elections.